IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v21y2012i3p338-350.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of job loss and unemployment duration on suicide risk in the United States: a new look using mass‐layoffs and unemployment duration

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy J. Classen
  • Richard A. Dunn

Abstract

We examine the link between employment status and suicide risk using a panel of US states from 1996 to 2005 with monthly data on suicides, the duration of unemployment spells and the number of job losses associated with mass‐layoff events. The use of aggregate data at the monthly level along with the distribution of unemployment duration allows us to separate the effect of job loss from the effect of unemployment duration, an important distinction for policy purposes, especially for the timing of potential interventions. Our results are consistent with unemployment duration being the dominant force in the relationship between job loss and suicide. Nevertheless, mass‐layoffs may be powerful localized events where suicide risk increases shortly afterward. Implications for the design of unemployment insurance are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy J. Classen & Richard A. Dunn, 2012. "The effect of job loss and unemployment duration on suicide risk in the United States: a new look using mass‐layoffs and unemployment duration," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 338-350, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:21:y:2012:i:3:p:338-350
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1719
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1719
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.1719?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brainerd, Elizabeth, 2001. "Economic reform and mortality in the former Soviet Union: A study of the suicide epidemic in the 1990s," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 1007-1019, May.
    2. Ettner, Susan L., 1996. "New evidence on the relationship between income and health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 67-85, February.
    3. Theodossiou, I., 1998. "The effects of low-pay and unemployment on psychological well-being: A logistic regression approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 85-104, January.
    4. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2000. "Are Recessions Good for Your Health?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(2), pages 617-650.
    5. Audra J. Bowlus & Shannon Seitz, 2006. "Domestic Violence, Employment, And Divorce," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1113-1149, November.
    6. Daniel Sullivan & Till von Wachter, 2009. "Job Displacement and Mortality: An Analysis Using Administrative Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1265-1306.
    7. James P. Smith, 1999. "Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 145-166, Spring.
    8. Chan, Sewin & Stevens, Ann Huff, 2001. "Job Loss and Employment Patterns of Older Workers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 484-521, April.
    9. Minoiu, Camelia & Andres, Antonio Rodriguez, 2008. "The effect of public spending on suicide: Evidence from U.S. state data," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 237-261, February.
    10. Ruhm, Christopher J, 1991. "Are Workers Permanently Scarred by Job Displacements?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 319-324, March.
    11. Antonio Rodriguez Andres, 2005. "Income inequality, unemployment, and suicide: a panel data analysis of 15 European countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 439-451.
    12. Chuanc, Hwei-Lin & Huang, Wei-Chiao, 1997. "Economic and social correlates of regional suicide rates: A pooled cross-section and time-series analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 277-289.
    13. Stevens, Ann Huff, 1997. "Persistent Effects of Job Displacement: The Importance of Multiple Job Losses," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 165-188, January.
    14. Honore, Bo E. & Powell, James L., 1994. "Pairwise difference estimators of censored and truncated regression models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1-2), pages 241-278.
    15. Helen V. Tauchen & Ann Dryden Witte, 1994. "The Dynamics of Domestic Violence: Does Arrest Matter?," NBER Working Papers 4939, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Neumayer, Eric, 2004. "Recessions lower (some) mortality rates:: evidence from Germany," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 1037-1047, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohseni-Cheraghlou, Amin, 2013. "Labor markets and mental wellbeing: Labor market conditions and suicides in the United States (1979–2004)," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 175-186.
    2. Justina AV Fischer & Antonio Rodriguez-Andr�s, 2008. "Political institutions and suicide: A regional analysis of Switzerland," TWI Research Paper Series 33, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    3. Minoiu, Camelia & Andres, Antonio Rodriguez, 2008. "The effect of public spending on suicide: Evidence from U.S. state data," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 237-261, February.
    4. Claudio Detotto & Valerio Sterzi, 2011. "The role of family in suicide rate in Italy," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(2), pages 1509-1519.
    5. Antonakakis, Nikolaos & Collins, Alan, 2018. "A suicidal Kuznets curve?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 90-93.
    6. Antonio Rodriguez, 2006. "Inequality and Suicide Mortality: A Cross-Country Study," Development Research Working Paper Series 13/2006, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    7. Daniel G. Sullivan & Till von Wachter, 2006. "Mortality, mass-layoffs, and career outcomes: an analysis using administrative data," Working Paper Series WP-06-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    8. Salm, M, 2008. "Job loss does not cause ill health," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 08/16, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    9. Anyikwa, Izunna & Hamman, Nicolene & Phiri, Andrew, 2018. "Persistence of suicides in G20 countries: SPSM approach to three generations of unit root tests," MPRA Paper 87790, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Nikolaos Antonakakis & Nikolaos Antonakakis & Alan Collins, 2014. "Does Fiscal Consolidation Really Get You Down? Evidence from Suicide Mortality," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp182, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    11. William J. Carrington & Bruce Fallick, 2014. "Why Do Earnings Fall with Job Displacement?," Working Papers (Old Series) 1405, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    12. De-Chih Liu, 2017. "The Discouraged Worker and Suicide in the United States," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 134(2), pages 771-787, November.
    13. Andersson, Elvira & Lundborg, Petter & Vikström, Johan, 2015. "Income receipt and mortality — Evidence from Swedish public sector employees," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 21-32.
    14. Dorn, Florian & Lange, Berit & Braml, Martin & Gstrein, David & Nyirenda, John L.Z. & Vanella, Patrizio & Winter, Joachim & Fuest, Clemens & Krause, Gérard, 2023. "The challenge of estimating the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 interventions – Toward an integrated economic and epidemiological approach," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    15. Broughel, James & Viscusi, Kip, 2017. "Death by Regulation: How Regulations Can Increase Mortality Risk," Working Papers 06864, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    16. Stevens, Ann Huff & Schaller, Jessamyn, 2011. "Short-run effects of parental job loss on children's academic achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 289-299, April.
    17. Bloemen, Hans & Hochguertel, Stefan & Zweerink, Jochem, 2018. "Job loss, firm-level heterogeneity and mortality: Evidence from administrative data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 78-90.
    18. Chen, Joe & Choi, Yun Jeong & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2009. "How is suicide different in Japan?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 140-150, March.
    19. William J. Carrington, 2015. "Do We Know Why Earnings Fall with Job Displacement? Working Paper: 2015-01," Working Papers 49908, Congressional Budget Office.
    20. Deb, Partha & Gallo, William T. & Ayyagari, Padmaja & Fletcher, Jason M. & Sindelar, Jody L., 2011. "The effect of job loss on overweight and drinking," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 317-327, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:21:y:2012:i:3:p:338-350. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.